Samifer Compilations
by Symmet
Summary: A collection of short stories/ficlets for Sam and Lucifer that did not fit into any multi-chapter stories. Will be added to over time.
1. Candor

The demons murmured apprehensively as Lucifer was led down the pale terra-cotta hall, watching out of sight, black eyes glinting from the warm shadows. Lazily he murmures, "While I appreciate the sentiment…" then lets it trail off. He's probably not going to do this. At least, he would rather not. It's powerful magic if it can bend the will of an archangel. He has no interest in doing that to himself.

Or leaving both himself and Sam at the mercy of these demons. In any sense. Ever.

"But, Father, please, he is yours and yours alone, and once he is within the spell, he will be unable to deny the bond." The demon in question was excited, it's black eyes were bright with ambient light, and it seemed entirely too pleased with itself, nearly bouncing as it led the way. Lucifer wanted to catch it's head and squeeze it and make those eyes _burn_ out with his Grace.

He only nods.

Lucifer was hesitant to go into a truth ward room, if only because he generally preferred being able to think coherently, not liking the inability to manipulate words. He also was not pleased with the idea of Sam saying yes here, as opposed to Detroit. But he owed it to himself to at least inspect it, for it was a rare opportunity. Not many had existed even when he'd last walked free - certainly now there could barely be the one (and even then, a hundred witches had to be sacrificed for it to even be temporarily functioning again). No doubt, those who had been under it's effects and the effects of it's kin and found themselves displeased with whatever truths they had found themselves revealing. And thus destroyed them.

"It will reveal the truth within me, and as I am an angel, my first instinct will be to smite you." that is a lie. As himself, it is his constant instinct to smite them all. But he would rather not have to think about what they hear and what he says, and generally doesn't appreciate their company at all.

The smile faltered, but then flushed back to delight, "Not to worry, my Lord, for we shall all leave you until the spell ends. Your privacy is most revered, after all."

Lucifer tilted his head at that. They stopped at the entrance to a small room, lit from within with no obvious source. Along the inside of the archway glowing runes sizzled. Across the room, three demons had appeared and were holding a bound and gagged (and furious looking) Samuel Winchester. Who promptly saw him and looked horrified. His struggles resumed with even greater ferocity.

Even as he seemed terrified of Lucifer, Lucifer couldn't help the small smile at the sight of the human. Well, if nothing, this should prove entertaining.

He sighed. "Very well, you have convinced me of it's merits. You have done well, my child." He turned and pressed a gentle kiss upon her brow, holding back his Grace, as she squeaked in evident joy and then backed away, calling the others with her.

He sighed again, then smoothly slipped through the wardings, feeling them drag and pass over his borrowed skin and bubble in his grace before settling. Already, he felt exposed. A lightness of thought encompassed his being, and he distantly noted he should dislike the feeling. It was an absence of sharp clarity, and he does not welcome it.

However, already the magic is suddenly sparking along the vessel's ruined skin, hissing as it healed over the mangled flesh. If nothing, this is useful for extending the amount of time this poor vessel has. He lifts a limp wrist and inspects it, notes the skin flowing over the small discrepancies like liquid, knitting unseen underneath, the bone, the blood, the tissue. He lists the reasons this will be a good experience even as he continues to wish he hadn't done it.

Sam is immediately thrown in as the demons scatter, and he falls on his hands and knees, gasping as he feels the spell start to work. Lucifer decides to kill those three promptly after this is over, for none should think to handle Sam like that. Sam is huffing, and Lucifer knows he has no idea what is happening, most likely, other than something he is very opposed to.

Sam shudders, still fighting, not quite believing where his willpower has suddenly gone.

"I imagine it is much like a wall." Lucifer says quite without intending to. He's just thinking it, and now it's coming out of his mouth. He frowns, wanting to keep his thoughts to himself. "You're trying to hold back the wall and suddenly the wall isn't there anymore and now you're trying to hold back the air. But you can't." Sam is looking up at him, dragging the gag off his neck (it was tugged down shortly before he was hurled in), looking half confused and half horrified. Lucifer can't understand for the Grace of him why humans should like getting drunk and spilling their secrets like this.

"Stop fighting it." He says instead.

Sam's face goes from drawn with alarm to tight and angry immediately. Lucifer thinks Dean calls that a bitch face. Sam scrambles back, leans against the small terra-cotta shrine table. He regards Lucifer half warily.

"Every time I almost say yes because you…but then I realize we're not." He says, not making any sense, but still with a look of surprise comically crossing over his face as it comes out.

Sam is several feet away. Lucifer realizes he does not like this.

And then Lucifer is leaning close, over the hunter and Sam seems frozen for a moment before he relaxes (the spell breeds truth and Sam cannot find himself feeling threatened, because that is the bond he denies them both,) and Lucifer feels a soft hum rise in his chest.

Softly Sam says, "I keep remembering that if it were me, I would be trying to do everything in my power to fix this. Not…"

_destroy the world_

Lucifer smiles, "Ah, but Sam, what if you knew you were right?"

Sam is still trying to hold on to his control, and he gives a distracted laugh, "You know you're right? Even though God told you you were wrong?"

"God wrote the prophecies, yet you still fight fate."

Sam frowned in confusion. "That's different."

"Not really. Why are you fighting destiny?"

Sam abruptly sits up, and then sways as the blood rushes to his head, or he feels something to the effect of that. "I have to."

Lucifer laughs, indulgently, "Well, so do I."

Sam blinks, then understanding glows on his face, "You have to do the apocalypse?" he says, somewhat unsure.

"Yes."

Sam seems wistful, almost sad, "You could choose to be different, though, to not have to."

Lucifer frowns, "Nonsense."

Sam shakes his head like a puppy, a small smile playing on his lips, "If me fighting destiny is what _I_ have to do, and you doing the apocalypse is what _you_ have to do, then if you expect me to eventually change my mind and say yes, I can expect you to eventually change your mind and stop." Suddenly Sam is grinning as if he hadn't thought through it before he'd spoken the revelation out loud and he was glad it still made sense.

Lucifer sighed, "Samuel, I won't-"

"Oh don't." Said Sam softly, "It makes me hopeful. I want to see you forgiven, Lucifer. If only you would try."

Lucifer feels himself burn at those words, but before he can think of what to say to them, Sam suddenly adds shyly.

"I like it when you call me Samuel. Well…I like the way you say a lot of things…" He says thoughtfully. For a moment he stares off into the distance before a sudden look of horror flashes upon his face as he recognizes what's happening.

Lucifer feels just a little cruel, so he leans in and kisses Sam's neck. And then rises to his jaw. And then his mouth , and Sam is pressing into him even as he distantly notices that Sam's conscious is furiously trying to stop himself from kissing back. He could make Sam say yes, now, make him beg.

He doesn't know if he will, but he lets his hands wrap around Sam's shoulders and pull him closer at the thought.

His.

Suddenly, however, Sam is pulling away, "No." He breathes raggedly into Lucifer's cheek, tense but relaxed all at once. Lucifer can't actually stop the flinch. Sam should want to say yes. It hurts. More than he'd like to say.

so he won't.

He can't stop the look on his face, however.

Sam freezes and Lucifer looks at him to find Sam with an upset expression caught between apologetic and hurt and sad and shocked. As if he's realized he can't stop himself from caring whether or not he's made Lucifer unhappy. And that's halfway an unspoken apology if ever there was one.

As if he needs to explain himself he sighs and regards Lucifer evenly.

"Do you really want it to be like this?" He murmurs, pulling back even as he strokes Lucifer's cheek. Lucifer leans into his touch absently. "Do you want it to be a spell that does it? Not a choice?"

Lucifer feels Sam drag his fingers through his hair and sighs. Sam didn't know exactly what was going on, but he could guess. And he supposed Sam was right. That was why he hadn't liked the idea of getting Sam to say yes here. He wanted Sam to say yes without any threats or deals or promises. Well. He would promise Sam the world already, regardless, but otherwise. A tiny part of him wanted Sam to say yes and break just a little as Lucifer had when he'd said no to God, and wish he hadn't even as it was too late, and the rest of him accepted.

"This is a spell that makes you completely honest, Sam. It drags out your honesty and makes you act and speak on it. It's not necessarily forcing you to do anything. You just act as you secretly want."

Sam curls into Lucifer, and isn't it ridiculous, this giant of a man, pressing into Lucifer for comfort. Sam whispers with shame into the crook of Lucifer's neck, "I want you to change for me. To be redeemed. To be happy another way, without trying to make me undo everything I've tried all my life to protect." A sad, tiny voice. It has no hope, no faith in it's dreams.

The most Sam can do is say no.

Lucifer aches, and gently kisses Sam's hair, croons and pulls his fingers through it.

"I know." He says, even though he doesn't. The spell must be wearing off soon, and Sam will return to fighting him tooth and nail and soul and mind.

He means to say, "one day you'll see, you'll understand and you will love the world we remake together."

but somehow it comes out, wrong, confused.

He feels the last dregs of the spell curl up and catch fire and turn to ash in his lungs.

"Maybe one day I'll see, I'll understand why you love this world so much and we'll love it together."

He and Sam both still even as the words spill off his tongue. He tightens his grip on Sam even as the hunter raises his head sharply, clearness already spreading like cool water throughout both their heads.

"Lucifer - ?"

He immediately flies them out of there. To the motel. He has a dim sense of where that is supposed to be.

They arrive in front of it just as Dean is slamming the door to his car and Castiel is regarding the man from across it.

"What-" Sam begins before Lucifer unceremoniously dumps him there, even as Dean is yelling and Castiel is suddenly by the younger Winchester's side.

Lucifer quickly does a short spell in Enochian that blocks Castiel's ability to delve into Sam's mind for that last hour before giving the startled angel a small grin and disappearing. He knows even as Dean's yelling fades that Sam is fainting.

* * *

The first thing he does is make the terra-cotta house burn.

There's a reason they didn't survive, he knows, that they often had a way of making people admit things they didn't know they felt.

And now he has something new to reflect on.


	2. Parallel

It comes out angry and biting. Because he is not afraid of Sam leaving him so much as waiting for it to happen. He does not read the human's mind so he does not know what Sam expects of him, and he is not afraid of failing Sam so much as waiting for it to happen.

"Do you want salvation, Sam? Is that why you keep me? Do you think you will find forgiveness in these tattered wings? But I'd tell you there is none to be given from this Grace, so you might as well go. _Leave_." There's a quiet rage there, but a hopelessness, too, rage at himself for holding on so tight, rage at Sam for letting him.

Sam gives soft, wet laughter, and Lucifer looks away in disgust. Even as something inside him wants to cut at his wings because he's making Sam cry.

Sam does not seem aware of it.

"We're parallels, you forget." Sam murmurs as he levels a dark glare the human's way.

Sam chuckles aimlessly, and then makes that face. The one set and hurt and still going to say something he'd rather not because he has to.

"You think that **_I_** think I'll find redemption if I keep an angel long enough to wash away my sins. _But you know better_. That whatever made you pure and capable of offering deliverance as an angel is long burnt out of you."

Sam steps up to him and Lucifer doesn't use his lungs unless he's speaking out loud, yet his breath catches at the openness of Sam's face, those eyes, so bright.

_with tears_. Tracking along his cheeks like train tracks, cutting through healthy earth in ash-stained steel and dead, dry wood.

"You don't suppose it means that I think **_you_** think you'll repent if you keep a human long enough to stop hating them."

The words hiss down his grace, it's like swallowing burs and feeling their teeth drag along his esophagus. There must be a certain level of truth to them if they hurt so much, and thus, a certain amount of shame.

Lucifer flinches as Sam raises his hand to paint gentle strokes on his cheek.

"_But I know better_." He breathed into Lucifer's hair, "That whatever made me innocent and capable of the humanity you need to learn to love has long been blackened over by blood." He presses a kiss to the side Lucifer's hair, lets his hand drop before he starts to lean away.

Lucifer twitches, fights it for a millisecond before letting it escape as a gust of wind upon a stranded ship in a breezeless sea.

"You are the most ridiculously human creature I have ever met, Samuel Winchester."

Sam gives a soft sad smile as he turns away, does not turn to look at him.

Lucifer mourns it all. How did it end up so complicated? Wasn't it simpler once? (No. Not for Sam, at least. And he knows that now.)

"Remember how ironic it was?" He says lightly, instead, looking at the old ornaments hanging from the walls, reaching up to brush his fingers against them delicately.

"That I, in my hatred of humans, would come to love one so?"

Sam had turned to look at him, he knew, but it was when he heard the hunter's breath catch that he continued, letting the soft music of old wind chimes tangle between his fingers.

"The thing about humans is though they have the ultimate potential to be virtuous and beautiful, they are a thousand times more likely to be sinful and ugly. As a general rule, they are. "

silence met his statement, so he resumed.

"I would not deny that humans are _capable_ of good. Their evils just far outstretch their ability to commit to that good."

His hand returned to his side as he listened to the chimes sway and sing, buffeted along as if by a caress of Grace.

He stood so long watching and listening that he almost startled when Sam appeared at his side, eyes on the still singing bars of metal, a questioning and soft, "Lucifer?" prompting him to continue.

"Humans lie and cheat and kill each other, and then to those weaker or lesser, animals less sentient or simply lacking an opposable thumb, they also lie and cheat and kill. They breed war and lust and gluttony and greed and sloth and wrath and envy and pride." He feels almost breathless, and turns to regard Sam, who waits with wary eyes, having heard so many times what Lucifer thinks, even if this has a spin on it.

"But I suppose there are some very, very, _very_ few who are competent at showcasing the virtues, as well."

Sam almost smiles. And Lucifer wonders when exactly he began to care or count that as a victory, when he could read the quiet Sam sung on his breath and find the smallest smile thought but not made.

And yet, Sam waits, not explicitly knowing, but feeling that Lucifer has more to say, in the unfinished silence and quiet storm of Lucifer's thoughts. Waits for Lucifer to reveal it.

"Sam." He says with a fond and oddly sad huff, aching even as he gives a forlorn smile, for simply looking upon his hunter brings the ghost of a smile to these lips, an echo of joy radiating out of his Grace.

Sam inclines his head just the smallest bit.

"Oh, don't make me say it." He sighs, even as Sam makes that face - as if he's caught an almost insult in the air, and he could be offended by it but he's giving the speaker the chance to redeem themselves and make it into a compliment.

There's a challenge glinting in Sam's eyes, ready to debate and muse and argue, yet perfectly content to let it slide and be warm and docile and pliant and soft.

"Oh, Sam…I used to be the brightest of Heaven, you know." He turned abruptly to gaze at the sky. Not that Heaven resided there, no, that was some human nonsense. He was looking beyond the clouds and the atmosphere and the smog, to the dark night hidden behind the veil of sunlight. To the stars.

"Luce?" Sam says, stepping up next to him, following him, always, and glancing up above.

"It follows that if I were the embodiment of everything an angel could hope to be, then you…"  
He spun lightly on his heel and pressed a forefinger into Sam's chest, just above his heart, knowing Sam would notice that, "…my _parallel_, would be the quintessence of whatever beauty humans could ever hope to achieve."

Sam scoffed, gentle, sad, "Luce, I was addicted to demon blood. I was…I'm so far gone. And I've killed things since I could properly hold a gun."

Lucifer grunted, "Yes, our fathers_ were_ very into fighting, weren't they? What with angels being the warriors of God and all."

Sam shook his head, letting an indulgent grin slip onto his face, but before he could say anything, Lucifer continued, recovered from the tangent that only Sam could inflict upon him, "Yes, you became addicted to demon blood."

Quickly, Sam adds, "And if that's as good as you think humans can get, no wonder you've been all about getting rid of them. However, I would like to point out that they can be much, much better." There's a hint of humor, but also, under, self-depreciation.

"And Sam, that is what I mean. Demon blood? Do you have any idea what it does to a soul? How it _destroys_?"

Sam is caught in the severity of his tone, focus suddenly snapping to him, intensity incarnate. It makes his Grace burn, just a little, to have Sam look at him like that. When those eyes watched, they saw everything, and something inside him curled up and cried out against the invasion of privacy, and something deeper sang and thanked and reveled in being known again.

Lucifer gives his sad smile again, "Oh, Sam, you all thought me hypocritical to love you so, when you were human and you had…" He tentatively reaches out, to see if Sam angry with him, how he speaks. He rests his entire palm against that heart that has stopped too many times. Sam tilts his head at Lucifer, raises an eyebrow and lets his mouth suddenly split into a ragged grin.

"Your soul is still so bright underneath, Sam. It's… like staring into a sun. Barely anything marked it, you see? The only time you were truly a monster, you were soulless - because your soul is that inherently good, Sam. It almost doesn't matter what you do, because your morality is that immense, it can fracture, get covered in soot, but never blacken and stain, never break. You are the only one who could forgive me, if anyone could, and the only one whose forgiveness I would either covet or accept."

Sam gives that sudden broken and beautiful laugh. The one that is too old for his hunter, too worn and wearied by the world.

"Oh Lucifer" He huffs around a smile. He grasps Lucifer's face and rests his forehead on Lucifer's so that they stand nose to nose. Lucifer is caught in those eyes, flawed and human and like a grey green pool silent and wise, hidden and waiting in a jungle for eons. A smile, bright, this time, not so broken, but just as arresting.

"What does that say about you and your Grace?"

Lucifer gaps at him for a moment.

"You stupid, wonderful toucan." Sam laughs, love rich in his tone and thrumming in his soul, through his heart and fingers and into Lucifer's skin, making his Grace spark and numb his mind.

"I would only ever desire a salvation you could offer, too." He adds softly, after a moment.

Lucifer snorts.

"Synchronous, then, I suppose. Symmetrical."

A soft kiss is pressed to his lips.

"Parallel."


	3. A Godless Realm

**absque**

The room was small, hunched in upon itself, almost cozy, dark and brown and intimidating only when it was unfamiliar.

Sam sat quietly, as he always did when he dreamed. Lucifer, not far enough to seem distant, but not near enough to seem close, followed suit. Sam half brooded as he sat, folding and refolding and folding a tiny, white paper crane.

Lucifer was entranced.

As soon as Sam completed it, it came undone in his hands. It was small and sharp for a moment before it was a rumpled piece of cloth.

And Sam seemed content with the dream - of course, unless Lucifer pointed it out, there was no reason for Sam to be anything else. Such was the way of dreams - they carried a strange surreality about them only after they had transpired. During, however, they were the most like reality than any other thing to the mind, not having futures or pasts, like one moment turning in and out and in again, a tesseract in simple rotation, clay being kneaded into itself, or the reincarnation of a white paper crane.

Just as Lucifer decided not to interfere, Sam's gaze flickered up to him.

The paper dissolved in his hands and suddenly there were sparks running along Sam's mind as he recognized Lucifer, and his conscious mind hummed into being. Lucifer could have chosen to let Sam actually dream about him, to keep the simple sort of openness that seemed to infuse itself as Sam while he dreamed. Lucifer would have quite enjoyed it, he thinks.

But Sam would not likely forgive that once he woke and recognized the intrusion, as if Lucifer had made him drunk instead of sober, had taken advantage.

Sam huffed. "It took you a while." He says, just a hint of surprise.

Lucifer smiles thinly, "Nonsense. I've been here since the beginning. You only just noticed me."

Sam frowns, and Lucfier knows already the dream is floating away on ice flows as Sam floods his mind in a warm rush of spray and sea. Or rather, Sam's mind floods Sam.

Sam looks out of the window, which moments before had only held grey space, and now dragged itself wider until it rested in the wall like a door. Outside, the night was alive and bright. There stars crowded the sky as morning dew upon blue black roses. It spilled light into the room, the tiny pricks of light glinting coyly from the boards.

Lucifer was pleased that Sam preferred the sky without pollution.

Sam sighed, and sagged back into his chair.

Outside, the stars began to whirl and dance. The shadows cast from the window became cranes, lifting off the sill into the shadows and oblivion of the rest of the room, hundreds, thousands, silently coming into being and just as quickly leaving.

Sam watched for a while, and Lucifer watched him.

Then, when the last crane had gone, he steeped his fingers and rested his chin upon them.

"Can I ask you something?"

Lucifer hummed agreement, still caught in the last vestiges of tranquility the dream had flushed the tiny world with.

"Tell me a story."

It was not a demand, but it was not exactly a question. It was more a request.

Lucifer looked at him then, curiously, surprised, though he would never say it. Sam lifted one eyebrow in challenge, did not smile or frown or look away.

Lucifer sighed.

He did not think this dream deserved to hear about the Cage. Not how Heaven had been before humanity - or after, either. Something sharp was in Sam's gaze, and Lucifer knew Sam was giving him a test.

What could he say?

* * *

_I used to dream, in a sense._

_Sometimes, when my brothers had all crowded the Earth beneath and Heaven was the only place empty and still, I would retreat there._

_And I was not annoyed with them, for we were all enamored by what God created, but I liked to enjoy it in silence, too, and we were all getting used to...creation, really, life. We are alive in a different sense, unmarked by time, by change._

_And I would be so thankful for God._

_And sometimes, sometimes I would wonder what would be without God._

_I would try to imagine a world before God._

_It was always very upsetting._

_The vast tendrils of space ever reaching out, ever looking for him, ever expanding in search of God._

_I would pull myself into something like a dream, and get lost in the ache of an existence where God was not._

_(Now I realize I never thought of a world after God. It was an impossibility to me. I knew there had been a world before God, so that was comprehensible. But I never thought God would forsake us.)_

_I thought that was the worst possible situation, to find myself alone in a world never touched by God._

_And in some ways, it is. More than nothingness, for God created that as he created everything._

_And in this place, I imagined myself existing without God. Perhaps waiting. Perhaps lost._

_And I realized that without God's influence, I would not even have an angel blade._

_And I would float on for eternity, alone, nothing able to kill or free me._

_Nothing to end it._

_And that, I thought, was the most terrible thing._

_And then father left, and Michael blamed and cast me out of heaven, hoping to draw Him back, regain whatever lost favor lived between He and us._

_But you see, I could not love above my Father, especially for creatures so flawed._

_Father announced his new and favorite creation, told us to love them above him, then disappeared._

_Do you understand?_

_It was even worse._

_At least alone I could keep my absolute love of God. But before he left, he asked that I give that love up, bend it around to things so wrong and incomplete and unworthy. To find solace in a sinful soul rather than the Grace of God._

_But then he left. And we were alone. And I was terrified._

_When Michael cast me into the Cage, I found peace._

_There was the void, untouched by God. He had left it unmarked, and this was my prison, and this was my punishment._

_And I stayed alone in the Cage for millennium in a Godless world._

_And I could not end it, for Michael had not even thought to leave me my blade.  
_


End file.
